Humberside Police reckon a gang of koi carp rustlers are using Google Earth to identify garden ponds from which they subsequently fish their booty.
East Hull has in the last three weeks suffered 12 nighttime raids, during which expensive carp and pond equipment have been lifted, according to the Hull Daily Mail.
Police …

Corporate Cop-out

That drivvle spouted by Google is utter nonsense, not even land registry and/or library maps and plans will have current garden configurations in them. Nor have I seen a OS Map featruing speed cameras and fish-pond locations!!!!

This is exactly the kind of reason someone should've demonstrated a bit of due diligence before letting a slopy-shouldered mega-corp photograph every inch of the planet.

Sounds fishy to me

"Police Community Support Officer Sam Gregory insisted the evidence points to the dark hand of Google Earth. She said: "Google shows what is in your garden and you can see people's ponds. One of the properties targeted has an eight foot fence and is set back from the road."

And not through local newpapers, fish fanciers, local gossip?

Many Koi keepers share info, what's to say the fish felons haven't used such info?

Most Google images for the UK are not that detailed so you can spot the fishes.

No increase in risk?

"Google Earth creates no appreciable increase in security risks, given the wide commercial availability of high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery"

Absolute rubbish. What used to cost hundreds of pounds to those who knew where to ask is now available to the whole world, effectively anonymously and for free. A speculative search would cost even more.

I knew....

This they bloody care about...

But vandalism to a car and having our phone and TV wires physically ripped out by a passing drunk (possibly one someone in the house had dumped, not me though) and they just ignore us. Maybe how much they care depends on which side of the river you live on.

As for Google Earth, "commercially available" as someone mentioned only if you know it's there and are willing to pay. Now everyone and their brother knows its there and it is free, though it'd be a sad bugger who spent time trawling for ponds which may or may not have valuable contents. I agree it's more likely this was done through local shops, perhaps observing who goes in and out.

Have thet actually tried looking?

Right, the acid test. Fire up googlemaps and look at the back garden of a neighbour who has a Koi pond.

FAIL

I can clearly see their garden on the overhead shot. I can see a featureless rectangle that covers the width of their garden, which local knowledge tells me is their pond. However, you'd need an eyeball the size of a planet to determine if this was a pond, a concrete standing, a bare patch of grass or just a blanket laid out for sunbathing.

Yes, you can spot houses that have swimming pools (but not if they have fish in them :-) so I would venture that Plod is up to his/her old tricks of taking a new and poorly understood technology, assuming it's arrival is linked to a spate of crime - whether there's any link or even a commonsense possibility, and then go around spreading FUD and presumably laying off the blame for this crime, rather than doing the obvious and trying to catch the perpetrators.

Google Earth - evil - think of the children

Scandalous! Save the world from the evil!

Oh, and ignore the existence of multimap, TerraServer, the MS version (Bing Maps?), or even... shock horror... Google Maps, which has been around even longer! (and as Time Life might say, plus many more)

@Adam Salibury

to be fair, google don't show current garden configurations either. you'll be lucky if they're only 5 years old! have any of the victims only dug their pond recently I wonder, and is their pond shown on google earth?

@TrixyB

I cannot believe that even a lowly worthless rag like the Hull Daily Mail would actually print this drivel as the main front page story of their tabloid - but they did.

A number of fish thefts occur. A PCSO ponders aloud whether the thieves used Google Earth to plan their dark deeds. He speaks to the local press ( note to Humberside Police - please bring back centralised press releases from the PRO - this might stop your moronic staff from bringing further disgrace to your force). The local press then make a huge story out of the musings of a PCSO and publishes it as fact. Quite incredible, even for such a scumsucking local rag as the Hull Daily Mail.

Are reported crimes investigated by PCSOs in Humberside. Are linked crimes investigated by PCSOs? If so why? There was a time when you may have expected most crimes to be be investigated by a detective - then times changed and low level crimes were investigated by uniformed officers - but surely they must draw the line at allocating crimes to PCSOs for investigation? Are things in the Humberside Police that bad?

Agreeing with Mr Haworth...

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who still has a garage that I thought I'd demolished ages ago and my old car (from 4 cars ago) is still sitting, rather nonchalantly I might add, in my drive way.

In fact, I sometimes look at the old rendition of my house on Google earth quite saddened in the knowledge that somewhere, down there, a little 'me' is still living in abject misery with a vindictive Shrew.

That's usually when I start shouting "Run! While you still can..." at the computer...then they bring me my special tablets.

I think logically

Better version than I have..

All I can say is if Google Earth can identify which fish ponds contain carp, then they must have a far superior version of Google Earth than the rest of us.

Yes, sure, it could identify which gardens have ponds, but does this mean the devious villains have been into every back garden with a fish pond in it? And if so, what is the difference between Google Earth and climbing a tree equipped with a pair of binoculars? Because it seems to me either way would give you the exact same information.

Garden ponds are not exactly uncommon in England and to go fishing in every one of them just in case it has a particular type of fish they were after seems unlikely. Far more likely is they got their information from another source, perhaps something like a list of all the customers that were sold expensive fish in the area or by checking out the online membership roll of an exotic fish bothering club. That is far more in keeping with the way criminals do their research.

I can haz Googlearth/lolcat mashup?

I don't envy plod ...

It's a hard life. Nicking motorists for frivolous offences such as driving at 33mph whilst paying attention to to the current hazards, etc. Mr/Mrs "30mph exactly" on the other hand with nose glued to the speedo that has just crunched another car is beyond reproach because they were driving carefully ....

We have idiots making changes to the law on a regular basis in this country. Time for the seagull cabinet to really flit the nest !

This article demonstrates that we sometimes have idiots enforcing (well attempting to) the law. Most coppers are OK though, and I don't envy a difficult job - look at the TV footage of the Friday night drunks situation in any town in the UK for an example.

It would be nice to see some good old fashioned detective work on this, instead of blaming technology for providing out-of-date information at too low a resolution.

@Bob Young

@Pete 2

Actually i fired up google maps and went to Hull and right away noticed that Hull is blessed with the highest "zoom" level range of pictures and therefor it was quit easy indentifying ponds, pools, trambolines and garden gnomes. (the last one was a lye)

Blunderside Plod at their best

They are a truly useless bunch - they recently telephone someone who said they were abroad and took that as gospel. If they'd actually gone to his house they'd have seen him inside (plus isn't the mobile ringtone slightly different if you're abroad?).